House Vornholz

Haus Vornholz in Ennigerloh-Ostenfelde was the seat of the Knights of Ostenfelde in the 12th century. Today, in the midst of the Münsterland park landscape, the castle is an ideal starting point for cycling tours on the 100 Castles Route and short hikes.Tour information

• Vornholz Castle is still privately owned today. Because of this, a tour of the interior is not possible.
• The Cavalry Museum can be visited by groups by appointment.
• There is only visual contact with Vornholz Castle.

In the past centuries, Vornholz Castle changed hands several times, which had a decisive influence on the building form and history of the castle.

At the end of the 15th century, Vornholz came into the possession of the von Pladies zu Huntemühlen family. In 1535, Heinrich Vogt von Elspe became the new owner of Vornholz Castle, acquiring it from Anna von Pladies. Bernhard Vogt von Elspe then sold the estate to Bernhard von Wettberg in 1602. It was he, in turn, who passed the estate into the possession of the commander-in-chief of all Münster troops, Dietrich Hermann von Nagel, in 1656.

After a fire, Dietrich Hermann von Nagel had an unadorned baroque manor house built from 1666 onwards. Since then, Schloss Vornholz, as it still exists today, has been located on a house island protected by a double moat and rampart. The oldest part of the three-winged castle is the two-storey central building made of plastered rubble stone with a high hipped roof. Construction of the castle ended for the time being in 1685, and in the following centuries smaller and larger extensions and conversions were carried out again and again.

Finally, international horse shows made the castle famous. The horse stud located on the grounds was founded in 1937 by Clemens Freiherr von Nagel-Doornick. His sister Ida von Nagel won the bronze medal in dressage with the German team in Helsinki in 1952 with a horse bred at the stud. She was the first German rider to win a medal at the Olympic Games. Today, Vornholz Castle is particularly known for horse breeding and the adjacent golf course.

The cavalry museum in the castle was founded by Clemens Freiherr von Nagel-Doornick. It is considered the most important of its kind on German soil.